OCD - realising I think that I have it.

[cashewnutsandraisins]

Hi everyone,

Pretty nervous about writing this, I'll be honest. (And apologies for the super, super long read...).

I've been lurking on the forums for the last couple of weeks now reading posts. Firstly, and I hope it doesn't seem patronising, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has posted and/or shared advice. Talking about our most inner thoughts is something I certainly find incredibly daunting and the honesty and bravery of posters and then the support and generosity of the advice given has not only really humbled me, but also has helped me as well with starting to understand myself, and make sense of what I think is going on with me, more. I hope that makes sense, anyway.

I'm posting on what is feeling like it could turn/will turn into a bad day where I'm struggling with thoughts trying to burst their way into my mind, after a couple of good days where I've generally felt in control and able to use some of the tips I've picked up on here to help with it all - allowing the thoughts to just be and not judge them etc.

To give some context, I've not someone who has had a formal OCD diagnosis and I've not seen a doctor specifically about this.

I'm in a long term committed relationship with my boyfriend of almost two years. We moved in together last September and, at risk of sounding really soppy, I couldn't ask for a better guy. Sure he has his faults, but I love him so much. He makes me feel safe, he makes me laugh, he makes me feel beautiful, supported etc. I'm in my early thirties and up until then had never had a proper boyfriend. I spent years and years thinking I would genuinely be alone my entire life, because each and every man I developed feelings for never felt the same way. I even had probably the worst five years (and I'm not even exaggerating) of my life trying to come to terms with my male best friend not having feelings for me, when I had made the mistake of falling in love with him. Five years to get over it, because it was something that I bottled up, kept to myself and genuinely felt like I was carrying a bucket full of poison in the pit of my stomach the entire time. So that gives you a sense of me, not much of a talker about how I really feel - very much a bottler up.

Except with my boyfriend - and again at the risk of making people vomit from reading this, I genuinely feel like all the years of being alone and carrying a sense of devastation with it, were worth it if it meant meeting him. He is literally the only person I've ever been able to fully open up to - in a way that is actually something which I find quite scary.

But anyway, around last summer just before we were due to move in, I started developing questions and worries (and I mean super bad worries) that I am gay and have never clocked it up until now. I was literally triggered one night watching an episode of Eastenders, where the character Callum embraced his true sexuality (being gay) just before he was due to marry his girlfriend. I watched the episode and it was like a bolt from the blue of panic - oh my god, this could be me - with sweaty forehead, knot in my stomach etc. And this has been something which has been plaguing me on and off since then (I'm currently in bout three of an extended number of weeks with this all directly under the surface of my day to day). One of the worst things about it has been the catastrophic fear that if I am gay then I will absolutely break his heart. And then in recent weeks I've developed thoughts around our relationship and if I do love him as much as I think I do and how maybe we're not meant to be together anyway. Again, it has been causing a lot of stress, worry and unhappiness.

In terms of being gay, literally the thought had never crossed my mind before that episode of Eastenders. I keep finding myself going back and back throughout my past trying to analyse it and being brutally honest there have been about three times in my life where with girls, there has been a little something - not necessarily attraction - but just a fleeting moment of 'oh, there is something different about this person'. Part of me wonders maybe if I need to accept that I could be homosexual in anyway, but again until this whole thing started last September even those fleeting moments were not things I ever thought about - or ever thought to act upon -. I've always been interested in men, and the few dalliances I've had...well I was definitely into them.

I was at a complete loss with what was happening to me until by pure fluke I stumbled across OCD a couple of weeks ago, including HOCD and ROCD. I read everything and I literally burst out crying because it was like 'wow, this is everything that I have experienced down to the letter'. I even came to realise that I've been doing this sort of stuff since I was a small child - I had a prolonged period of sexual intrusive thoughts as a young girl, triggered by learning about sex education where the only way I could not feel anxious, guilty about it was confessing to my mum after school. Things got so bad and my parents so worried that they even had to get advice from the headteacher, but no one clocked it being anything more than a confused little girl at the time. For years and years I was haunted by the belief that I was sexually abused by my best friend's dad. I sought out hypnosis in my early twenties to help with crippling rumination - which at the time I never clocked any link to OCD. There have been more instances of other things and yeah, now I'm here with what I have explained.

I haven't gone to the doctor since self-diagnosing myself and I am scared to do so. (and I also really do not mean to be that person who self-diagnoses. If anyone does understand and can forgive the self-diagnosis as I say reading about OCD was like holding up the biggest mirror to myself and lightbulb moment of realisation).  I'm really scared that I'll discover I am gay if I do go to the doctor. I'm also on a positive note just trying to do what I can to self manage, given what I have learnt and continue to learn and being patient with myself with that. I would say that it is helping on the whole, but yeah as I've said today is feeling like a bad day is brewing and this is what has prompted me to post on here.

Being honest with myself as I'm sat here, I think I have turned to writing this post as I am seeking reassurance, which I realise is one of my compulsions. So I'm already questioning the legitimacy of writing this post. I guess today I just feel like I'm really struggling and I just wish my brain didn't feel like such an enemy in my own body. I am scared. I'll be honest. It feels like a battle, and even when I have good days I feel worried by the possibility of a bad thought cropping into my mind and a bad day occuring. 

Anyway, thank you if anyone has read this far. It is appreciated and at the very least I wanted to say hello, although I don't know if I'll be a regular poster as such. X

 

 

 

[malina]

Welcome to the forum @cashewnutsandraisins! So much of what you have written resonates with me and my own experience of OCD. I think I've had OCD my whole life but wasn't diagnosed until I was 20 and, just like for you, it was such a lightbulb moment where so many things in my life started to make sense. 

In terms of getting a diagnosis and therapy, I think it's a personal choice and not necessarily something you have to do. I've seen people on the forum recommend some good books, although I can't remember their names off the top of my head (sorry!). It sounds like you are already learning a lot on your own but I do think you should be open to therapy if you feel at some point that you're not coping. I've found therapy really useful and you can definitely learn a lot from CBT and ERP that you may not be able to on your own. 

I think you've taken a very brave first step in posting on the forum and trying to learn about this condition. I'm sorry that you're having trouble right now, all I can say is that your worries are very common among OCD sufferers and you can definitely learn to manage them with some work.  

[BelAnna]

Hi @cashewnutsandraisins, 

Welcome to the forum!

Don't worry about self-diagnosing - if you have distressing intrusive thoughts of an unrealistic or exaggerated nature (to differentiate it from 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder') that are affecting you for at least an hour a day or are impacting on important areas of your life and you make attempt to suppress, neutralise or seek reassurance for these thoughts; then you have OCD.

GPs aren't experts in mental health so when they diagnose, they just follow the ICD diagnostic criteria and some are actually unaware of the various ways that OCD presents and so more likely to diagnose 'Generalised Anxiety Disorder'; this is particularly the case if someone doesn't have obvious external compulsions (as opposed to neutralising/ruminating). When you see the GP you don't need to go into the details of your intrusive thoughts- you can just say that you have intrusive thoughts that you find distressing and you try to neutralise or ruminate on them and you ask for reassurance as compulsions. If they don't offer CBT and don't suggest it might be OCD then you can ask for a referral to a Psychiatrist or Psychologist for an assessment.

In the meantime the OCDuk shop has some good self-help books that you could have a look at! 

I hope you can beat the OCD so that you can live the lovely life that it sounds like you have built for yourself!

[cashewnutsandraisins]

Hi @malina and @BelAnna

Thank you both for taking the time to reply to me and for your kind words and understanding. It really is appreciated and has helped to give me comfort in what has felt like a hard few days.

Whilst probably stating the obvious here, the ‘realness of the thoughts’ is one of the hardest parts and sometimes I feel like I no longer know what is true and what is fiction anymore. It’s only because I can see so many other points in my life where I was struggling so much with other intrusive thoughts that helps me to have faith in that this is another round. But that bit of doubt that always lingers - ‘could OCD just be an excuse, a cover up‘ - is terrifying.
 

One comment I did see on the forum was around how OCD likes to latch onto the most important things in your life and that helps me to understand why everything at the moment seems to revolve around my love life and my boyfriend. He has been so understanding and has listened to everything I’ve said with no judgement, but I hate the fact he has to hear it at all - the thought of hurting him or causing him to doubt our relationship breaks my heart. I am going to try and do what I can to lessen telling him what I can, as I also have become aware that in doing so I am seeking the reassurance I need to relieve how I feel.

Anyway, today is back to - trying to - letting thoughts pass without judgement, I’m working on a cross stitch and I’m going to have a look at some options for books around overcoming OCD to read through.

Thank you both again. Hope you have a lovely day. 

[malina]

25 minutes ago, cashewnutsandraisins said:

Whilst probably stating the obvious here, the ‘realness of the thoughts’ is one of the hardest parts and sometimes I feel like I no longer know what is true and what is fiction anymore.

If the thoughts didn't feel real, this wouldn't be such a big problem. I think the reason that they feel so real is that they create such a strong emotional reaction that is hard to ignore. I've been working on incorporating mindfulness into my therapy and have found it really helpful. Part of it involved just thinking about how the thoughts make you feel physically - where in your body do you feel them, how does it feel. Through this I really noticed that they produce a strong physical response, like tightening in the stomach, muscle tension, a really overwhelming sensation in my chest etc. I think that pinpointing all of these different physical components helped me understand two things. Firstly, it made me realise that I'm not just trying to deal with a thought, but also the really strong physical and emotional effects of that thought. This is partly what makes it so real and hard to dismiss. The second thing was that learning all of the different mechanisms underlying my reaction really helped to compartmentalise it and be less overwhelmed by it. Instead of always feeling like I was going to explode, I started to think actually "ok right, here comes the feeling in my chest" etc and that made it more manageable. 

I think you are on the right path. You shouldn't feel bad for getting support from your boyfriend but, you're absolutely right, confessing everything to him and seeking constant reassurance isn't the right way to go.

Best of luck, everything will get better soon!!

Edited July 4, 2020 by malina

[cashewnutsandraisins]

Thank you @malina and @Doubt_It for the recommendations. I’m going to give both a try!